Kansas City, MO

What the Data Says About MCI

Kansas City, MO in Kansas City, Missouri handled 524,365 flights in the Bureau of Transportation Statistics dataset between 2020 and 2025, posting a 82% on-time departure rate. Of those flights, 94,477 experienced delays, 6,385 were cancelled, and 582 were diverted. The cancellation rate works out to 1.22%, the diversion rate to 0.11%, and the average delay when departures run late is 70.0 minutes. These figures are the baseline for comparing MCI against other airports in the same state and nationally.

Breaking down what drives delays at MCI, Late Aircraft leads the pack. Late Aircraft accounts for 42.6% of total delay minutes, followed by Carrier at 30.3% and NAS (National Aviation System) at 20.8%. Weather contributes 6.1% of delay minutes at this airport, while security holds the smallest share at 0.1%. Travelers often overestimate the weather share; the BTS categorization shows late-arriving aircraft and carrier operations as the larger contributors.

Seasonally, September runs the cleanest at MCI with a 93.4% on-time rate, while July is the roughest at 89.2% — a 4-point swing between best and worst month. Volume peaks in July, when average flights hit 7,906. The busiest route from MCI is to MCI (Kansas City), with 22,306 flights at a 77.5% on-time rate. Combine these numbers — 82% on-time, 70.0-minute average delay, 1.22% cancellation rate — and you have a concrete picture of departure reliability at Kansas City, MO.